(Quebec) Five months after obtaining the lowest score for the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the general election since its founding, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says he is “calm” about the vote of confidence he will submit to on Saturday.
However, he has not gone so far as to set the threshold of support he wishes to obtain in order to continue.
The PQ will meet in convention Saturday in a hotel in Sherbrooke and it will be the first time that Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, crowned leader in October 2020, will pass the test of the vote of confidence of the members.
In an interview with The Canadian Press aired Tuesday, the independence leader said he trusted the members.
“I am very calm about this question, he said during a telephone interview at the end of a tour in Europe. This is a normal and absolutely necessary process in our party. »
The leader refused to venture to establish an acceptable or expected threshold of member support for the continuation of his mandate.
“I’ve done the best job I could since I was given the mandate to be chief. I’ll let the members decide if my work deserves their support. I am preparing a congress which is nonetheless substantial. As for the vote of confidence, serenity is the word. »
The rules of the formation provide that the leader must submit to a vote of confidence, an exercise which has sometimes been painful, even fateful, for his predecessors.
In 2005, Bernard Landry, then leader of the opposition, resigned after obtaining the support of 76.2% of delegates to the convention, to everyone’s surprise. Could Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon do the same?
“No, because I have the constant support of members and authorities in our action. We are in a political party capable of dialogue and above all in solution mode. In the adversity we experienced before the elections, it helped a lot to have people in solution mode, able to unite. »
Recall that the PQ elected only three deputies to the National Assembly in the elections last October, seven less than in 2018.
The party won 600,000 votes in 2022, or 14.61% of the vote, compared to 687,995 (17.08%) in 2018.
The PQ leader can still count on a favorable trend that seems to be emerging. According to the most recent Léger poll published in February, his formation would have gained 3% in voting intentions, to 18%, compared to the October ballot.
Sovereignty would also be on the rise in the electorate, with 38% support for the option among respondents, 6 points more than the last poll on this question carried out by Léger and Le Devoir in 2018.
In addition, the PQ is still first in the collection of popular funding, that is, contributions paid by voters.
In addition to the sensational departure of Bernard Landry, the PQ conventions were perilous trials for other leaders as well.
In 1996, Lucien Bouchard, despite the aura that surrounded him following the 1995 referendum, won 76.7% of the votes of PQ militants.
But Jacques Parizeau, in 1992, won 92% of the votes of his troops.
In 1982, after threatening to resign, the founding father of the PQ, Premier René Lévesque, obtained a score of 95%.
